


For You

by GuiltyRed



Category: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuiltyRed/pseuds/GuiltyRed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud pauses between battles to discover what is and is not his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For You

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** For You  
> **Author/Artist:** GuiltyRed  
> **Beta:** YohjiDeranged  
> **Rating:** G  
> **Warnings:** None  
> **Word count:** 364  
> **Summary:** Cloud pauses between battles to discover what is and is not his.  
> **Prompt:** Final Fantasy VII, Cloud: Possession - Sometimes he doesn't control anything.

He had his own sword…

…the sword of a dead man.

He had his own armor…

…taken from the dead.

He had a girl…

…his best friend's widow, reunited with him in death.

Cloud sighs and plants the sword in the hard ground. Here it will remain and rust, forming another outcropping of the planet in due time.

He regards his shadow, long and dim in the gloom. Even his shadow is a shade of the dead, a reflection of the man who had turned Cloud's life inside out.

"Zack," Cloud whispers, sitting down beside the sword with a thump that jars his spine. "Zack, everything's gone wrong. It's over now, but it's still wrong."

The wind whispers back: _It's not wrong, you're doing fine._

"No, I'm not." Cloud hangs his head, watches his shadow look up at him from under unruly spiked hair. "Everything I did went wrong. She's…Aerith is…" He couldn't bring himself to say the word. "And now I have nothing."

_Nonsense!_ The voice of the wind has turned playful, sounding to his grieving ears like the song of a girl. _You did what you had to do, Cloud. I don't blame you. And he doesn't either._

That's right, the first voice adds, _there's nothing to blame you for. You haven't screwed things up. Not yet, anyway. Do you want to throw your life away now?_

"I have no life to throw away," Cloud murmurs. To him, this is only a statement of fact: his heart and mind have known turmoil for too long. "Everything I am belongs to someone else. To you, Zack. What am I supposed to do now?"

The wind caresses his cheek with twilight warmth, kissing first one side, then the other. _Live, Cloud. Live._

"But I –"

A zephyr twirls across the dirt to pause at his shadow before darting in to brush his lips. _Okay, until you can bear to live your own life, keep living mine. I don't mind. Makes it easier to watch over you, actually. And I'm definitely going to keep watch over you. I promised, didn't I?_

Silent tears streak down Cloud's face to be kissed away by the wind.


End file.
